This invention relates generally to social networking systems, and in particular to overlaying text onto photographs presented on a social networking system.
A social networking system allows users to connect to and communicate with other social networking system users. Users create profiles on the social networking system that include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. The increasing popularity of social networking systems and the significant amount of user-specific information maintained by social networking systems make a social networking system an ideal forum for users share content, such as photographs or text content, with other users. This sharing of content allows users to share their interests and experiences with other users.
Conventionally, social networking systems allow users to post content about themselves and other users for presentation by the social networking system. Content posted to a social networking system may include text and/or images associated with a user providing the content. For example, a user provides content to the social networking system indicating that it was at a specific location by checking in at the location and uploading a photograph taken at the location. The content provided by the user is presented to other social networking system users.
If content provided by the user includes an image as well as text, the text may be presented adjacent to the image or overlaid onto the image. While overlaying text on an image may conserve space or enhance the aesthetic display of the content, text that is overlaid onto an image may be difficult to read because of the image content. In some cases, details in the image, such as areas of highly contrasting colors, may obscure the text. For example, it may be difficult to read text overlaid onto a photograph of a zebra due to the highly contrasting colors of a zebra's stripes. Additionally, text overlaid onto an image may obstruct details in the image, such as faces, other text included in the image photograph, or other important content in the photograph. Hence, while overlaying text onto a photograph may be desirable in general, in many cases it should be avoided.